The BBC is replaying some of the radio programs that won the first ever Audio Drama Awards last month. One of these was Referee, starring Mark Addy in the title role, and Andrew Scott as a German-accented blackmailer named Walter Koch. I listened to it when it ran the on BBC4 the first time back in May 2011, and I listened to it again yesterday in order to refresh my memory.
To begin with, I have to make mention that I am not a fan of sports. At all. In fact, this program was even more tedious for me because I have even less knowledge about British sports than American ones. Frankly, all of the constant talking about games strikes me as ridiculous. It always seems like much ado about nothing to me. But to each their own, right?
So with that disclaimer, I will say that the program, Referee, seemed like it would've played much better as a comedy than the "serious" drama that was attempted. There seemed to be little at stake for the referee whether he accepted the bribe offered by the mysterious phone caller played by Scott, or not. All the teeth-gnashing and soul-searching Addy went through came off as rather silly to me. Whoever thought this was a great concept for a dramatic piece must've stopped paying attention to popular culture sometime in the late fifties. Addy, who usually plays a sort of everyman, was doing his best to inject some sense of fear and urgency into his predicament, but it made the situation even more absurd. I always like his work, but he couldn't overcome the premise this time.
I would like to say that Andrew Scott pulled out the production and saved it, as he so often has done with other flimsy vehicles, but it didn't happen. To be fair, his performance has to be evaluated in parts and as a whole. In parts it was successful. Was Koch believably sinister? Sure, sinister enough, but he really never said anything scary until the end when he finally broke out of that oily, quiet tone and threatened the victim's family. By then however, it was far too late to care. Scott's interpretation of a blackmailer was pretty much on a par with every phone-in blackmailer we've seen in movies, where they have a close-up on his mouth and the mouthpiece of the receiver. Of course, now that would be done on a cell phone, so a little more difficult to hide the face. But in any case, that was a tried and true dramatic cliche that worked about as well as it always does. I had hoped when I listened for the second time I would be on board with the accent Andrew did for the role. It was some sort of German-ish accent, but mostly he reminded me of Martin Short in Father of the Bride, who deliberately did an accent that was unidentifiable as being from anyplace except probably Eastern Europe to make the character seem even more buffoonish. The way he said "wahd-ding" for wedding was hilarious. I won't go so far as to say that Andrew's accent was that funny, but it certainly didn't help the plodding writing any. I was rather stunned to see that he had been nominated for an award for the role. When you consider all the parts Andrew's played that he should've been nominated for in one medium or another - Laevsky in Anton Chekhov's The Duel, for example, was one he should really have won an Academy Award for, much less been nominated - it can only possibly be ascribed to the "Sherlock Effect" (thank you, dear reader) which is fine.
The Moriarty Connection, if you will, is doing wonders for Andrew's career at the moment. Every short film and old television mini-series that he appeared in is being trotted out on BBC television now. You can hardly open up a Tweet without seeing a link to an interview he's done these days. It' s pretty amazing and totally fantastic. Keep it comin'. Since Andrew's got his acting chops developed to a fine degree, all one can really say is "what the hell took so long for everyone to notice?" But, better late than never. Actually, in my opinion, Andrew is exactly where he should be in his career right now. After acting in nearly every type of role, even doing a little bit of singing here and there though he's a non-singer, for over a decade at this point, Andrew is ready for the main course of his career now. I know I'm ready to see it. But, I sincerely hope he'll continue to choose his projects with care - no Joker or other silly sidekick roles. That would be such a waste of his talent. Which unfortunately brings me back to Referee.
